Emily is 5 times as old as Omar and is also 24 years older than Omar. How old is Omar?
Explanation: We can use the given information to write down two equations that describe the ages of Emily and Omar. Let Emily's current age be $e$ and Omar's current age be $o$ $e = 5o$ $e = o + 24$ Now we have two independent equations, and we can solve for our two unknowns. Since we are looking for $o$ , and both of our equations have $e$ alone on one side, this is a convenient time to use elimination. Subtracting the second equation from the first equation, we get: $0 =$ $5o$ $-$ $ (o + 24)$ which combines the information about $o$ from both of our original equations. Solving for $o$ , we get: $4 o = 24$ $o = 6$.